and oh poor atlas
by Emmel1118
Summary: She never believed in happy endings. But happy endings weren't like prayers, you didn't have to believe in them for them to come true. - sequel to such selfish prayers. Vesper/Bond


_and oh poor atlas_

and oh my love don't forsake me,  
take what the water gave me

what the water gave me, florence + the machine.

She never believed in happy endings.

But happy endings weren't like prayers, you didn't have to believe in them for them to come true.

...

Fourteen years. Fourteen years of pain and anger and loneliness. Fourteen years of screaming lungs and haunted nightmares and fractured sleep. Fourteen years of broken dreams and emptiness.

Fourteen years, and he's standing on her doorstep. He's in front of her, close enough to touch; living, breathing and _real_.

"Would you like to come in, James?"

In the fading summer light, she can't quite see his face, but she's dreamed it so often she can read every flicker, every change, and as his eyes hold hers, she knows his answer.

And it is _yes_.

...

She lets him in.

For a moment, they regard each other, warily, but then he reaches out, as if unseeing, clumsily, with no grace, and puts his hand on her face.

She closes her eyes. The shadows seem to fall away and for then, at least, his touch is enough to chase away her nightmares.

He kisses her and under her skin, there is a flutter. A soft rhythm; one, two, three, again and again. A fragile thing, as easily breakable as a butterfly's wing, quivering in the breeze. A heart, beating and beating and _beating_ ; one, two, three.

Up until that moment she wasn't sure she still had one.

...

A memory, a moment trapped in time, something she has clung to over all those years.

Venice, the sun warm on her face. She can hear James behind her, rustling in the room, and she half-turns and finds him on his knees, staring up at her, a few metres away. Their eyes meet and she smiles.

"I love you," he says, quickly - a man obviously not used to such declarations. But that makes it all the more honest, all the more true. He breaks his eyes away, stares down at the ground. She goes over to him and kneels before him. She puts her hands on his face and makes him look at her.

She can see herself reflected, eyes that have had love taken away - orphans; vulnerable, lost, broken young. Mouths that have never formed those words before except in lies.

"I love you too," she replies, and then she kisses him.

...

In her darkest moments, this memory was far too painful, and she could not bear to recall it, but now- but now, she allows herself to remember, and oh, she remembers; how it felt before the world turned and spun her into a person she barely recognises. Except now, there are glimmers of the person she used to be, returning with every second she spends in his company.

...

She lies by his side. And she cannot sleep because if she were to fall asleep, she is scared this will all be revealed as some dream of hers, her broken mind fulfilling what she most desires, instead of reality.

So she stays awake, her hand on his wrist, listening to his heartbeat, just to remind herself that this is real, because after everything, this is almost incomprehensible - James by her side, once again? Never did she even entertain the possibility.

She remembers that terrible night in the cold, desolate nothingness of Montenegro. _Everyone has their price,_ she'd said, and loneliness had been hers. Eleanor hadn't understood - could anyone? - but she had been speaking her truths, the truths that had become ingrained into her identity, or lack thereof. She was nothing, and she had thought that was a constant was something that would never change. Darkness was her friend, and she was okay with that. It was her price to pay.

Maybe now she's paid it. Maybe.

...

Midnight. She's still awake. The darkness still has just a hint of summer light, clinging to the trees, creeping under the curtain.

Another sentence, uttered that night in the biting wind and snow. Madeleine this time, her eyes flitting in the dark, and it had been that moment she was struck by how similar the two of them were.

But it's rolling through her head, that whole conversation, but one part in particular, and the words spill onto her tongue before she can help them - "Do you forgive me?" rushed out into the heavy dark.

Her eyes flick to his sleeping form. She doesn't expect an answer. She doesn't need an answer.

But she gets one.

Eyes still shut, his voice deep and calm. "Yes." He turns his head so they are face to face. "The past is the past," he murmurs, but she can't bring herself to look at him.

"Vesper?" he says quickly, and she can feel his gaze on her.

"There's still blood on my hands," she says, softly, her wild eyes turning to meet his. "It will never come off."

She can see his brain working, his mind snapping back to that moment, so very long ago. She had felt such guilt but she had barely known the meaning of the word then.

"I forgive you. For everything you have done." A pause then, "Is that enough?"

He wraps his hands around hers, and regards her carefully.

She suddenly feels as if she wants to cry and she cannot bare to look at him anymore. Her lungs are still silently screaming, after all this time. She's been drowning for years, chained to a life she never wanted.

And he is setting her free. She opens her eyes. In the dark she can make out his face, concern written into every line.

"Thank you."

She falls into him, her head resting on his chest, and cries. It washes away everything.

Her lungs are finally set to rest.

 _(finally)_

...

"What now?" she asks in the morning, as he stands at the window, silhouetted in the early light spilling through the glass.

He almost turns, but not quite, shrugging.

"Life?"

She lies back, the summer heat rolling into the room.

"That sounds good."

...

He stays, in Stockholm, with her.

Domesticity never suited him, but he tries, for her.

A job, a house, a life.

...

A moment, then the next, and so it goes, all unfolding into a future she never thought she'd get to see.

A heartbeat, then another, followed by a third. A future is such a novel thing. She's not had one in so long.

...

She's at the mirror, putting on her earrings. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him, tangled in the covers, watching her.

"Do you have to go?" he asks and she smiles.

"You know I have to," she replies, finding his gaze in the mirror. "You should get a job, you know."

God it sounds strange out of her mouth, but she revels in the normality of her words, of their conversations now. She has craved this simplistic life before - for years all she wanted was to be _free_ \- but it has always been out of reach, unattainable, denied because of her sins.

But the world doesn't seem to be on their shoulders now they no longer deal in death and it is liberating.

"A job?" he jokes and she smiles, once again. She hasn't smiled so much in years but he always knew how to make her laugh.

"Yes, James. Would help to pay the bills." She turns around before he can reply. "You do know what a bill is, right?"

He grins.

"Can't you just phone in sick and come back to bed?"

She's tempted, for a moment, but she looks away, down at her hands, and suddenly she feels melancholic. Fourteen years, and she is not the person she was before, when they'd lie all day side-by-side, held in each other's embrace, and that would be enough, just discussing abstract predictions for the future, for a life yet to be lived. She has lived now, if you can call the last decade and a half living, and she is different becauseof it.

She knows James is trying to pretend that they are back there, in Venice, before their dreams were slashed to ribbons that fateful day so many years ago now. They still haven't talked, not properly, not about them, or about Madeleine, or about what happens now. And she understands, she really does, because it's so much easier to ignore it.

But she can't live like that. She is changed, for better or worse (she knows which), and things, no matter how much they wish and wish until the stars fall down and the sun comes up, cannot be like they were before. They are both older, shaped by their experiences, and there is a darkness at the very heart of her now that wasn't there before.

It's guilt. And she can see it reflected back at her in every inch of him.

"James, we're not young anymore," she says, quietly.

"I know that," he says, stretching out, missing the soft warning in her words.

"And there are things we need to talk about."

He doesn't reply, not instantly, so she stands and crosses to the bed. Outside, it starts to rain, drops rolling down the window, rushing and rushing, slicing at the glass.

"I'd rather," he starts, unable to look at her, "we didn't."

And she laughs. Loud, uncontrollable hysterics, doubled up, unable to breathe.

He snaps his head to look at her.

"Fourteen years," she says, a dangerous edge to her words now. "Fourteen _bloody_ years, James." His face crumples into a frown and he reaches out to touch her face, but she flinches away. "We can't pretend that they haven't happened, that we're still the same people. _Because I'm not, James."_

"I know, that," he says, but she cuts him off.

"But you don't, because you haven't asked and I haven't told you. I know you think you understand, but we're not the same, you and I. I didn't chose that life, I had no one, nothing - I lost everything of who I was."

He watches her carefully, weighing up his words.

"I know we're not the same," he says, simply, after a heartbeat.

He doesn't say anything else and she closes her eyes. He takes her hand in his and pulls her towards him. She struggles to begin with, but then she relents, and lets him hold her close.

"I'm sorry," he breathes into her shoulder, again and again, like a prayer.

 _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry._

 _..._

She's late for work.

...

When she was in Switzerland, with Gustav, they used to play Bondtolva until the early hours of morning if they were on night shift and it was particularly quiet.

They'd laugh, smile, and play their cards in the little backroom, behind the main desk, ears pricked for the ring of the bell. He would always beat her, except from the times he let her win - and she could always tell when he did, because he had this knowing smile on his lips the whole time.

This was when Gustav would tell her his stories, distracting her from her troubles and her hand.

Once, they were sitting opposite each other, at gone four. She had her feet curled under her, leaning forward in her chair, Gustav sitting back, regarding her carefully.

"You look lost, älskling," he had said.

She'd been there a year at that point and he had seemingly learnt to read her better than she could herself. He always had this perceptibility, saw things others didn't, and he saw something in her. The truth, perhaps, behind her facade.

She had laughed it off, made a joke, but he continued to look at her, carefully, closely, and she felt as if he could see beneath, beneath everything she had built, to the poor, little drowning girl who can't breathe, who can't breathe, who can't breathe-

"We all need a home, somewhere we are safe."

She laughed, again. "I've not felt safe for a long time, Gustav. I'm not sure I ever will."

"So you are lost," he points out and she feels her mouth quirk in a smile.

"Yes, Gustav, I think you could say that."

"There's always a way back, you know, älskling. I hope, one day, you find it."

She had almost laughed again, caught herself just in time.

Now, as she thinks about that moment, sitting in her little back garden, staring at the pale blue sky, James crashing around in the kitchen.

The way back. She likes the feel of it in her mouth. The way back. Maybe she has found it, in the end.

Things are slowly improving. She's not used to being near another person, let alone living with them, and the adjustment from her solitary existence is brutal. She doesn't know how to live, side-by-side, with him, but she's learning day-by-day, picking up pieces here and there, fragments of memories from a time when this was simple for her, before her trust was eroded by years of anger and violence and loneliness.

He has learnt, too, how to be around her, relearning rhythms he had only just worked out before they were parted years before. It is no longer just his armour that must be beaten, she has joined him in protecting herself from the harsh realities of life.

...

He gets a job.

Security guard.

He hates it, but pretends not to, though she knows anyway.

He sticks at it and slowly, comes to appreciate the slowness, the calmness, the lack of life and death, poised carefully on a knife's edge. It is his Switzerland, his calm in the storm that reminds him of his humanity.

They don't talk about his change of heart, but she raises an eyebrow when six months come and go and he is still there.

...

'Maja tells me you have, how do you say it, a pojkvän?'

She laughs, genuinely this time.

'A boyfriend?' She smiles, the phone clamped to her ear, the connection sounding slightly distant.

'Yes. Is she lying to me? Or...'

'She's not lying.'

A pause, a moment, as Gustav thinks of hisreply.

'And you are happy, älskling?'

She doesn't even think before she speaks.

'Yes.'

...

The seasons come and go. The heat and light of summer is replaced by cooling temperatures and golden light filtering through the orange leaves, which in turn morphs into crisp, snowy days and pitch black nights.

She's always liked the winter; it reminds her of her parents, of innocence.

She went skiing once, at university, with a group of mates from her flat. Long, lazy days on the slopes followed by late night drinking sessions that sprawled into the early hours, laughter ringing in her ears. She hasn't thought about that holiday, when she was nineteen with a future ahead of her, in such a long time, but the pale winter streets of Stockholm take her back there. She stops dead in the street one day, memories overwhelming her, and James has to nudge her, gently, whispering "Vesper," quietly, and she snaps back to reality.

She wonders what happened to those girls, with their hopes and fears of the future. She wonders if any of them would recognise her now.

...

They're lying in bed.

"You scream,' James says, suddenly, 'in your sleep.'

She shrugs, pulls herself away from him slightly.

'Do you want to talk about it?'

She shakes her head.

"We're too similar, James."She shrugs again. "I've seen things, done things..." She shudders in the December dark. "You don't come back from that easily." The words stick painfully in her mouth, like glass, and she feels shame climbing in her chest, rising like water, ready to swallow her under.

She rests her head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat thumping under his skin.

"Okay," he replies, softly and she's never been more grateful for silence in her life. A few more seconds, and she'd have been back there, drowning in guilt.

She knows she'll never be able to find the words to explain to him what happened to her, how she's changed from the woman he once knew. But he is different too, more subtly than her, but different all the same. There are twin looks in their eyes, and she understands. In their line of work, no one gets out unscathed, events chip away and away until they are shadows of who they once were.

They might be shadows, but they are still breathing, at least.

...

One day, she comes home from work, and she instantly knows something is wrong.

Slowly, she moves through the rooms, one by one, finding nothing, no one, to explain why she is so on edge.

It's as she enters the kitchen. Vesper sees her first reflected in the French windows and she hovers in the doorway, unsure whether to enter. The fear rising in the chest has been replaced by something else now; a confusion, a burning curiosity.

She takes a few steps into the room, speaking as she does so.

"How did you get in?"

"You live with a spy for five years and you learn a few things,' Madeleine replies, quietly, shrugging.

Vesper crosses the room, pulls out a chair and sits opposite her. She has no idea why the other woman is here, so she waits for her to speak again.

"When I first met James,' she says, finally, "I knew there was someone."

Vesper looks down at her hands on the table. She doesn't know what to say.

'But he would never say anything. I would ask him and he would change the subject. And then one day, he told me you were dead, that he had loved you but you were dead." Madeleine laughs then, head tipping back and it fills the small kitchen. 'And then of course, you are not. And here we are.'

Madeleine pauses, swallowing.

"I do not know why I am so bitter,' she shrugs. "He was never really mine. He was always yours."

"He loved you, believe me. You made him happy."

Madeleine raises an eyebrow, as if she doesn't believe her at all.

"He'll be home in half an hour." Vesper pauses, then, "I assume you are here for him."

She nods in reply.

"Would you like a drink whilst you wait?" she says, to break the tension that creeps up as the seconds begin to tick by, standing and crossing to the fridge.

"Why do you have to be so damn reasonable?" Madeleine snaps, suddenly, behind her, quick-fire French across the room. She turns back. "If you were some bitch it would be so easy to hate you. But you're not. You saved my life for god's sake."

She returns to the table and Madeleine doesn't look at her.

"You're just _Vesper Lynd_ \- the woman who so clearly isn't dead."

And she doesn't know what to say to that, so she says nothing.

...

James comes back half an hour later.

She goes upstairs, has a shower to drown out their conversation.

When she gets out, Madeleine's gone.

She doesn't ask James what she wanted. She already knows.

Madeleine's wedding ring glints on the table; left behind, abandoned, lost.

Vesper picks it up, cradles it in her palm, and she feels so sorry for her. She knows how it feels to be left behind, and, damn it all, she liked her and could see in her eyes how much she had loved him.

She puts the ring back down, and turns away.

James is standing in the doorway and he opens his arms and she falls into his embrace, suddenly drained.

"I know you loved her." Vesper continues before he can say anything. "Don't say anything, James. I know, and it's okay." She rests her head on his chest, and they stand in silence, holding each other, for a moment longer.

...

Christmas comes. They go to Switzerland, and Gustav, and she gets butterflies in her stomach when she thinks about Gustav meeting James for the first time. She imagines it is how it would have felt to have introduced him to her father, but of course he's dead so that can never happen.

In the end, Gustav likes him, smiling, shaking his hand and welcoming him into the fold. Like family. Such a novel thing, she thinks. She hasn't had one in such a long time.

She sleeps more easily that night.

...

They fly home, and things begin to slowly fall into a rhythm, though both of them are out of practice with domesticity.

She wakes every morning with him beside her and goes to bed at night with him there and that is enough.

...

And then September comes around and things go to hell.

...

It's a Saturday. The sun is slanting through the trees in beams, spilling over the green landscape and catching the people in a golden glow. It's warm, the last of the summer heat clinging to the air, but not uncomfortably hot. James is talking to Max, Gustav's son, a short distance away, holding a beer and she is happy to see him getting along with everyone so well. Children are running, ducking and weaving between the groups of adults, shouting and chasing each other.

She could almost say it was beautiful. A snapshot of a simpler time, when all that mattered were friendships and laughing and _living_.

Milo taps her on the shoulder, calling to the kids and gesturing for them to come over.

"They probably need a drink. I know the birthday boy does," he says, smiling. The children, including Milo's son - Gustav's grandson Oskar, two years old today, toddling unsteadily on his feet - crowd around them.

She leans over. "You need any help?" Milo looks at her gratefully.

They head off together towards the hall, hired out for the party.

She holds the door open and the unruly children pour past her. She looks up, meets James' gaze and smiles. He smiles back and she's not sure she's felt happier in more than fourteen years.

The last child files through and she follows them in. Milo leads them down a corridor to a small kitchen and instructs the children to sit.

Milo smiles at her as they move past the kids and into the main kitchen. He opens a few cupboards, searching for cups, and she keeps an eye on the kids in the other room through the hatch. When he finds them, she helps him line them up on the side.

She's got the juice in one hand, the other steadying the cup, when she hears its. Its low level, but her eyes snap up. She looks at Milo, oblivious.

But she's heard enough gunshots in her time to recognise them. She freezes for a moment, eyes closing, but then there it is again, the low rumble of gunfire.

This time Milo seems to notice, turning to her, about to say something, but she gets there first.

"Listen to me," she says, quickly. "Don't panic the children."

He gives her a look, one that is asking her what knowledge she has, what experience she has to order him about. He doesn't know – of course he doesn't – but she doesn't have time to care.

She goes back out to the children and tells them quietly to go into the back room, where Milo is still waiting, almost dumbstruck by fear.

The children comply instantly, the low rumbling of guns suddenly disappearing. She swallows a flash of fear for James, for where he is, for what is going on, knowing that she cannot let it overwhelm her.

The last child has just disappeared into the back room, and Milo's head is the only one visible through the hatch, when the door behind her bursts open. She has a few moments of pure clarity; the man, machine gun slung, almost lazily, over his shoulder, looking behind him, eyes away, face relaxed. Then things snap back to reality just as quickly, the man noticing her, eyes widening, weapon rising.

"Who is in here?" the man barks, quick-fire, and it takes her a moment to understand. It's French, she notes, not Swedish, tucking the information away, for later use – though for what, she's not sure.

The man gestures at her with the gun, repeats his question. This time she replies.

"Children," she says, hoping for mercy. He regards her for a moment, then barks another command.

"On the floor. All of you. Now."

She half-turns, aware of the gun pointed tightly at her.

"On the floor," she repeats, seeing Milo's frozen face.

The man hits her in the back with his machine gun as punishment.

"No talking," he snaps.

"They don't understand," she says, back to him, chancing her luck with the barrel of a gun in the small of her back, but unable to hold her tongue.

The man seems to consider her words, before replying, angrily.

"Get them on the floor, bitch."

She follows his instructions and the children, almost paralysed with fear, timidly emerge, a pale Milo behind. The man– and now she knows it is only the one, here at least – makes them line up, their backs to him, and kneel on the floor, Milo one end, her the other, hands on heads.

There are children crying now, whimpering sobs, tiny bodies wracked with terror.

The man turns away, muttering into his radio.

"Kitchen secure."

She resists the temptation to turn.

"I don't know," the man adds, answering a question she cannot here. She tenses herself, getting ready to pick her moment. She knows the carnage she could unleash if she gets this wrong.

"Just a bunch of kids," he says, still muttering into his radio she assumes, knowing the door hasn't opened.

"Yeah – there's a woman," he mutters, impatiently. "I don't know," he snaps. "Yeah, yeah." She catches Milo's frightened eye. "Bring her in?" he says, and her blood goes cold. Maybe this is about her after all.

It's now or never, she guesses.

Milo's looking at her, wide eyed, horror-stricken, as she twists from her position.

The man is turning back as she rises up. She slams an elbow into his cheek and he falls like a stone. She is surprised to see her training hasn't failed her as the man crumples.

She pulls his arms behind him and quietly explains to Milo that she needs something to tie his hands with. He doesn't respond instantly, frozen.

"Milo, _please,"_ she begs.

Milo gets up, unsteady on his feet, and disappears into the back room. She sees his head bobbing up and down as he searches.

He comes back a flash later, throwing her a tea towel, giving her a look that screams 'there was nothing else'.

She ties the man's hands and untangles the machine gun. She slides it towards Milo. The man alsohas a handgun and Vesper takes that, tucking it into the waistband of her trousers.

"Stay here. Don't move. Only use it if you have to."

The children are still crying when she leaves the room.

…

She sees them, lined up on the grass, kneeling. Her friends, Gustav's family, people she knows, trusts; hands behind their heads, trembling with fear.

But she doesn't see James.

Panic shoots through her. There are three guards, patrolling, waiting. Every so often one mutters into his radio and Vesper knows it's a matter of time before they realise the man inside is down. She has to act before that. She doesn't want Milo to have to use that gun.

She checks her weapon, wonders what the hell this is about. Wonders if it's her fault. It probably is, she thinks, remembering the man's barked words. They are looking for a woman and that woman is her, because everyone else is ordinary, normal, following simple lives. But not her.

She pushes the door open with her shoulder, body tensed, swallowing her guilt.

She hits two of them before they open fire in reply – before she feels the familiar slam of agony in her shoulder, the bullet burning its way in and she's falling, falling, falling.

She lands with a thud on the ground, aware of screaming, and a French voice she thinks she recognises but can't.

"What the fuck?" the familiar (but not quite) voice yells. "I told you not to fucking shoot."

She can see the sky through tired eyes. Then a man, one of the guards, machine gun swung over his shoulder, swims into her vision. The screaming has stopped now, replaced by rapid French she gives up trying to understand.

The man stamps on her hand, the one with the gun in, and she lets go, idly noting it sounds like her wrist is smashed. He kicks her in the ribs then; once, twice, three times, muttering 'bitch,' over and over as he does so. He follows it up by a swift kick to her head and she rolls backwards, away from him, with the force.

She hears the voice she thought she knew yell again.

"Don't kill her."

"Bitch deserves it."

The guard stares down at her. Her vision is blurred now, her ribs screaming, her hand aching. She wonders if this is it. After everything, to die like this, in such a beautiful place, when she had finally escaped, is perverse in the extreme.

She wonders whether James is still alive.

Her vision fades in and out for a moment, her head ringing. The guard's face disappears, replaced by another, and the shock brings her eyes into focus suddenly.

He reaches down and lifts her up like a broken doll, as fragile as a trapped bird, fluttering weakly against the bars of her cage. He rights her and she sways on her feet, unsteady.

She swallows uncomfortably, her lungs screaming.

"Hello, _darling_ ," she says through gritted teeth, broken ribs, her head screaming. "I thought you were rotting in prison where you belong."

Yusef gives her a bitter smile.

"Too useful, it seems. Your government saw it fit to see my release as long as they got one of theirs in return."

His voice is as familiar as an old friend, not that she has any of them. It reminds herself of late night laughing, smiling, trips to the cinema, restaurants. Another life. But he is changed, both in reality and in her memories – in reality, because prison seems to have taken its toll on him, and in her memories because of what she now knows about him, his true colours.

"What do you want?" she replies, spitting blood.

"Being detained of your majesty's pleasure was hell. So many years of hell. Isn't it natural I wanted to destroy the man who put me there?"

She closes her eyes. James. This is about James.

"And you were just a bonus. One I wasn't expecting." A pause, a short laugh. "I've been to your grave. Nice little unmarked plot in Venice, your name on a little memorial. Lovely. Except – oh, damn, _you're not dead."_

She sways a little more on her feet, eyes downcast, hands trembling with pain.

"You always were a pretty one," he says, reaching out. He puts his hand under her chin, and the chill of his skin against hers almost causes her to flinch, but her body is screaming too much. He tightens his grip, tips her head back forcefully so that her eyes meet his. "It was no great surprise to learn you managed to get him under your little spell too."

Yusef's eyes flash with barely concealed madness, a smile curving across his lips, a slash across skin.

He leans forward, places his mouth next to her ear so that when he speaks she can feel the air rushing past. "But that's all good for me. How long do we think it'll take Lover Boy to turn up to save the day? I'm sure he won't be able to resist."

He laughs then and she swallows painfully, but it hides a smile that is rising inside of her. He doesn't have James. He doesn't know where James is.

He pushes her away and she stumbles backwards, but then she feels a solid weight on her shoulder, pressing her down. She half turns, sees the guard who would have killed her but for Yusef's interruption; face passive, eyes cold.

"On her knees," Yusef barks and the man pushes her down until her knees hit the soft ground. "Move," he yells. The man moves away and without his hand supporting her, she nearly falls, her head swimming, her chest screaming, the world veering between dull black and white and extreme colour, burning her eyes.

She watches and Yusef pulls out a handgun, smiling wickedly.

"Sorry to say this is the end of line, _darling,"_ he says, darkly, and she knew him once, knows he's enjoying himself. She wonders how she never saw it in him, the darkness that stands before her, face twisted in a perverse grin, eyes glowing with hatred.

He points the gun at her. She doesn't close her eyes. She knows he'd enjoy that.

Then there's a gunshot.

...

Yusef's eyes turn, wide, to the side, for half a heartbeat, but it's enough.

She launches upwards, springing towards him, grabbing the gun with her left hand because her right doesn't seem to be able to work at the moment.

He's taken by surprise and she gets the gun with ease, twisting so that she's behind him, arm around his neck, gun to his cheek.

The guard, the one who nearly killed her, lies on the grass, bleeding quietly in the late September air.

Her lips are close to his ear now, her eyes scanning the horizon, searching and searching.

She knows this has been James' work, somehow, but she doesn't know if the danger is over. The two guards she shot are down on the grass, one gurgling blood, one pale and shivering, clutching his leg, murmuring something under his breath, staring at the sky.

Yusef struggles in her grip but she holds him close to her, a mockery of the closeness they used to share - long nights spend by each other's side, curled into each other. They always laughed. Yusef used to laugh.

How did she not know?

"Don't give me an excuse, Yusef," she says, through burning lungs. She's still trembling. "You're not the only one who's changed."

Then she sees them, flooding towards her, black-suited men, faces hidden, the word 'polis' emblazoned on their chests.

They are yelling, words she understands in the abstract, but cannot form into coherent sentences.

They wrestle Yusef from her grip and for a moment she wonders if she should have shot him. It's a fleeting concern, but then it's gone and she knows the moment is past.

She turns away, stumbles a few feet. Then the world is fall sideways, and she feels the soft ground on her skin, setting her nerve endings on fire. She can see her friends, their friends, people she knows, trusts, lined up on the grass, kneeling, policemen spreading around them, checking they're okay.

She's glad their backs are to her, guilt rushing through her.

...

She feels like she's on fire, burning, burning, burning; flames licking through her bones, her skin, every part of her on fire, screaming with pain.

Will it not be water, as she always thought, but fire, in the end, that does for her?

...

It feels like there's a butterfly in her chest. There's a gentle flutter; tentative, hesitant, fragile. It brushes against her ribs, inside, trembling, and the everything begins to spin away from her in a haze of fire, once again, running through, burning, aching.

A heartbeat, the fire fades away, replaced by darkness. The butterfly is still there, rising higher in her chest, wings beating faster, stronger now. It lifts until it is in line with her heart, and then its engulfed in a frenzy, crashing against her ribs in a race to oblivion.

The last thing she thinks before darkness descends, takes her somewhere there are no butterflies, no pain, no fire, is that she _lost._

...

She's back in Venice, in the red dress that haunts her dreams.

James is there, just too far away to touch.

The world around her is a blur, buildings and faces and people all colliding into one spinning image that is far too noisy, and yet she recognises it so well. The water, in particular, is sharp in her focus, dark and deadly.

It's that day.

(the day she _died)_

James turns to face her, but he doesn't seem to see her. His eyes fly high above her, the brightest blue she's ever seen, hurting her eyes with their vibrancy.

She reaches out, he's closer now, her hand ghosting across his arm, but he doesn't feel her touch. He turns away, abrupt, and he's walking towards the crowd and she wants to scream, but her voice isn't working, it's failing her, and she is powerless to stop him disappearing, somewhere she can't reach.

She hides her face, the noise getting too much for her ringing head.

...

When she looks up, Venice is gone.

Instead, she's on the pavement; small, with unknowing eyes, innocent.

People are everywhere again, fluttering blue tape flying in the wind.

She sees it then, in a parting of a crowd, the slash of green on grey, burned hard into her memory.

Then it's gone and a woman, her face blank, her eyes unfocused, reaches out.

She goes to take it, but she falls through, insubstantial, transparent, half-there, half-not.

...

Things fade once again, a haze of light, fuzzy around the edges, and then reforms.

Her parents, faces crowding down at her. She knows they are the reconstructions of an ailing mind, knows now all of this is - because she knows she cannot remember her mother's face.

And yet there it is, as beautiful as her father always professed it to be. And her eyes - oh, her eyes! They are her eyes, reflected back at her, screaming, it's okay, Vesper, it's okay, it's not going to hurt for much longer.

And then she remembers the pain and suddenly it's back, crushing the air out of her body, and with it goes the image, crystallised, of the parents she never knew, who never knew her, who could never form those words except from in her mind, another reconstruction, another play pretend, from a little girl who just wanted to hear them say it.

(i love you)

But it's all gone now.

...

She opens her eyes.

She feels awfully high, like she's floating, and it takes her a second to remember the dullness around the edges, the muted colours, that come with massive doses of morphine.

She recognises the ceiling, it's blankness, it's whiteness, from a thousand other nights like this. They are all the same, in the end.

She blinks, some part of her aches. She wants to sit up, but something's telling her that it won't be a good idea.

So she just turns her head, gingerly, little by little, but things threaten to slip out of focus, so she stops, breathes, rests.

And that's when she sees him, floating just in front of her.

James. Alive.

But then something hits her, deep inside, aching just as much as her broken body, and she closes her eyes, pretends to have fallen down into darkness once again.

(guilt)

...

Things are slower this time. She is older, more broken, the years of damage taking their toll on her fragile bones.

...

The doctor comes in.

"You're lucky to be alive," he says and if she didn't feel so bloody terrible, she'd have laughed.

She doesn't feel lucky. She's never felt _lucky_.

He rattles off words she lets flood over her, rushing like a violent current.

She's reminded of something she thought after Venice, after her first brush with Death.

They say water cleanses the sins of the guilty.

No fucking way.

He repeats his useless platitudes again before he leaves.

"You're lucky to be alive."

She wants to scream.

...

James remains a constant feature, even when she begins to scare him with her silence, her dark eyes, unable to meet his querying gaze.

He talks to her. That's how she learns about what happened.

He was at the car with Max - getting beers of all things - when the shooting began.

They called the police, waited, and he fought the trained response to fly in, act like the hero. Max brought him back to reality to begin with.

But as the moments wore on, he snapped. Found his emergency weapon, stashed in the car - she would have laughed at that, before, but now, she lies, staring at the roof, apathetic - and left Max away from danger.

He had seen them across the park, from the trees, bided his time.

He saw Yusef, connected the puzzle pieces. Saw her; hurt, swaying on her feet, struggling.

He saw his chance, took it. Only because he saw the stream of police, arriving beside him, around him, everywhere, knew he had to do something.

The gun in his hand had felt wrong, he told her, quietly, voice hushed she thinks in kindness for her ringing head - the doctors informed her that, among many other injuries, some old, reawakened, and the new, she had fractured her skull.

She almost smiled at that. Almost.

...

He's rambling on the first time she speaks after that fateful day.

"You should go," she says.

His eyes go wide.

"You should go," she repeats, rolls over, ribs protesting with a flash of fire.

Maybe it would have been better if it had consumed her.

"No," he says, pointedly.

She doesn't reply. She closes her eyes, falls back into an uneasy sleep.

...

He's still there when she wakes.

...

The days stretch on. The world remains dark for her, cast in black and white.

James stays. She doesn't have the heart to tell him to leave again.

...

She's been awake a few hours. James has been sitting in corner, away from her, removed, at a distance.

But then he gets up, her eyes flutter to readjust to the movement, to the new shadows cast on the white plaster ceiling.

He takes the chair next to the bed. The one he used to sit in, before he got tired of her flinching away every time he went to touch her.

He reaches out a hand, puts it on top of hers.

She doesn't flinch. She's not quite sure why.

She still feels like she's snapped in two, and something's missing, and the guilt is eating at her, dragging her down.

But she lets him hold her hand.

...

(that's a start - right?)

...

A few more days.

He's holding her hand again - her good one, not the one crushed to oblivion by the sole of a boot.

"Please," she says, quietly, into the silence, creeping between them like smoke, separating them, "go, James."

She feels like she's made of glass, fractured, and she so desperately doesn't want him to get cut on her edges, razor-sharp and jagged.

She wants him to go.

But he won't, she knows that. She knows him.

"It's still there, James," and he frowns. "The blood, after all this time."

...

She dreams, vividly, that night.

Venice, glittering blue water.

Amsterdam, the slam of the bullet.

The Thames, it's icy water.

And now the flurry of kicks, each one replayed in slow motion, Yusef's laughing face, caught shadow and shade in her memories, hovering somewhere above her.

...

She wakes slowly, but frowns instantly.

She can smell smoke.

She's able to sit up now, without her head screaming at her to lie back down.

"Hello Vesper."

She frowns again, her face furrowed with lines of time and of experience, curled into confusion.

"I found my price."

Eleanor shrugs, taking another drag of her cigarette.

...

The French windows are thrown open, the smoke curling outside, away, and she watches it avidly.

"I heard you were in a bad way," Eleanor says. Her tone is not quiet, sympathetic, like James'. It's loud, almost unconcerned, calm. "You look like crap."

She laughs then, her ribs screaming, but for some reason she doesn't quite care.

"Shit," Eleanor mutters. "Right, laughing, bad."

She smiles. She hasn't done that for a while.

"What was it?" Vesper asks, her voice quiet yet strong, and it surprises her.

Eleanor takes another drag, blowing the smoke sideways, thinking.

"You did warn me, after all."

"You didn't-" She breaks off, coughing, each one wracking her body with ripples of pain. "You didn't answer my question."

"You're right." Another drag, another deflection, then, "I had to live with it. And I realised I couldn't.'

She raises an eyebrow.

"But I'm out now," Eleanor says, folding her arms, the cigarette glowing orange. "And I have you to thank for that."

She smiles again. It feels new, different.

"You reminded me of myself, but I think you knew that, right?"

Eleanor nods.

"I'm glad you got out," she says, and she means it. "People don't usually."

Eleanor finishes her cigarette, stubs it out in the ashtray.

"Now it's my turn to give you some advice," Eleanor says, standing, crossing to the door. "He's outside. Had to kick him out, he didn't want to go. He's waiting."

Vesper looks up at the roof.

"You told me once to live my life." She pauses, hand on the door handle. "Now I'm telling you to live yours."

Eleanor goes then, leaving behind her the smell of smoke.

...

Progress is slow, but progress nonetheless.

...

She goes home after a month.

She thought it would be longer.

...

James sleeps in a different bed to start with, because she is still bruised, still damaged, still with jagged edges she's scared she'll cut him with.

But with every day that passes, a little more colour begins to wrestle its way back in.

...

They eat dinner together.

They don't talk much.

But when he picks up the plates, takes them to the sink, she says to the room in front of her (to _him_ , really), "Thank you," and she knows he understands.

...

After that, they sleep side-by-side once more.

...

She catches him, not long later, in the middle of the night, whispering "I'm sorry," over and over, into her shoulder, arms looped around her, carefully.

Like a prayer, like he needs to be forgiven.

But he is guiltless, at least in her eyes.

So, Eleanor's words running rampant through her mind, she puts her hands on his face in the half-dark and says, "There's nothing to be sorry for," and she feels something lift in the flash of his eyes.

Hope. Once again.

...

A month, then two, pass.

She's still at home, still resting.

The doorbell goes, she freezes.

James is at work, and she is alone.

Then she shrugs, goes to the door, knowing whatever it is - an assassin with a bullet, for example - it can't be worse than the last few months.

...

It's Gustav.

...

He takes one look at her, tsks.

"Min kära, look at you."

She falls into his embrace on the doorstep.

"Oh, älskling," he mutters as she holds him and revels in the solidness under her hands, in the comfort her brings her, like her harbour in a storm, and everything stops moving.

...

They go inside, drink cups of tea, and laugh.

He never once asks her about that fateful day, though she hasn't seen any of his children since then, and though she knows he must know.

And for that, she is _glad_.

...

James comes home at six.

At first he is wary at Gustav's presence, she can tell, but then he sees her eyes, sees the slow return of the woman she was and he sits beside them, clutching a bottle of beer.

...

Gustav leaves not long later, and she sees him to the door.

He puts his hand on her arm, the one so recently out of plaster, light like a feather.

"Please, älskling," he says, "be happy."

She smiles but he knows her too well.

"Be happy."

And when she nods, slowly, in response to that, he smiles in return.

"I'll see you soon."

...

James is at the table when she comes back in.

"Are you alright?" he asks, hesitantly.

"Yes," she says, reaching out her hands, graceless, as if unseeing, and tumbles into his embrace.

...

If this had been before, before Stockholm, before James, before their heady taste of domesticity, she's not sure she would have made it back.

There have been so many terrible things in her life, this would have been the final kick to end her, she thinks.

But it's not.

And, as slowly as it is, they rebuild.

They rebuild and they rebuild and they rebuild.

...

Until they can stand in the sun, side by side.

She leans into him, head on his shoulder.

"I love you," she says, quietly.

It has been a year.

He pulls her closer to him.

"I love you too."

Mouths that have only said the words in lies. Except this time, it's the truth.

...

Until they can stand in the sun, together, and she can say that she found the way back, in the end.


End file.
